A couple aged 25 and 30, suspected of the murder of a 49-year-old man whose body was found buried in the countryside near Châteaudun (Eure-et-Loir), were indicted and imprisoned on Thursday, a announced Friday the parquet floor of Chartres.

“The man and his concubine were brought on Thursday January 19, 2023 and indicted for murder, arrest, kidnapping, detention and forcible confinement with release after the seventh day (…) and willful damage by fire”, indicated Frédéric Chevallier, prosecutor of the Republic at Chartres.

The two suspects, who left for Martinique separately on January 7 and 8, were arrested on Tuesday upon their return to mainland France, the magistrate said in a statement.

The victim, living in the village of Beauvillers (Eure-et-Loir), had not come forward to those around him since the end of December.

Testimonies quickly allowed the investigators to put forward the hypothesis of a disappearance that had occurred “in a context of death threats, conflicts, violence and love rivalries between the missing man and another (…) residing in Châteaudun ".

A matter of deception

The young man's concubine had maintained "intimate relations with the missing man", also detailed the prosecutor.

The young woman told investigators that the victim had forcibly held her in her apartment in Chartres for two days, on December 24 and 25, 2022, subjecting her to physical and sexual violence.

The young man would then have learned of it, which would have triggered a "violent confrontation" in the young woman's Chartres apartment on December 30.

While in police custody, the suspect admitted to having killed the victim, in particular by giving him hammer blows to the head.

The 30-year-old also admitted to having used the victim's bank card to buy a spade which he used to bury the body in Lutz-en-Dunois.

The victim's vehicle was found charred on January 5 near Châteaudun.

The exploitation of telephones and video surveillance images enabled the gendarmes to discover that the suspect's telephone and car were present in the same place two days earlier.

Miscellaneous facts

Lyon: The victim has been identified in the case of body parts found in a pipe

Miscellaneous facts

Libourne: The body of an old lady, who died about three years ago, found at her home

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